Category: Illustration

This month is our 12th anniversary for our graphic design business!

How about that! We have been doing graphics and design in Ventura County for 12 years! Pretty good right?

What’s new you say? Well, one of the things I have decided to do is to continue with this blog that I started back in 2010. But this time around I will post more informative content, photos, updates and projects that I’m currently working on.

Furthermore, I will be including some how-to videos, graphic design tips and tricks and FAQ’s. And anything else you can think of.

The Old Studio

Here is a picture of the old design studio on Ralston Ave. in Ventura back in 2004. It looks like I may have been working on a brochure design at the time and going over the proofing and edits with the customer over the phone? Or, just being shy in front of the camera and trying to look busy.

Check out that midi keyboard!

When I started TUF Designs back in 2004, I did it all! Including video editing which also included making my own music for videos and TV commercials! Yup, I made my own instrumental music tracks and sound effects!

Continue to scroll down to take a peek at a few older designs and pieces of art I did years ago. From random sketches to logo designs and vector art illustrations.

Artwork Designs for hiphop and skateboard brands.

Artwork designs for skateboard decks hand drawn and digitized in Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop. Did these pieces back in 2002 when I used to work for a small silkscreening company printing skateboards. Started off sketching out the art on paper. Once I was happy with the artwork design, I scanned it and created the outlines in Illustrator. From there I exported the line art (vectors) into Photoshop where I added all of the shadows and highlights.

All of this is created in separate channels in Photoshop. Which work a little different than layers. Channels make it a little easier to separate artwork designs. The channels are exported as individual files used for the different colors of the art. In this case, there were only about four screens used since the artwork is monotone. Black, white and two different tones of grey.

The art on the bottom with the boy peeing on the fire hydrant, never made it to a skateboard deck. It was only a concept piece for a new startup business clothing line called “Streets”. However, I did a few other designs that did make it to a few skateboard decks as well as some t-shirts. Still thinking of what I can do this artwork.

I’ve always been into urban style artwork such as graffiti and “hiphop art”. Maybe this is where my style of artwork designs comes from? So when someone ask’s me to do some art for their brand new urban clothing line, I’m all over it!